I have lived in Southern Towers for 12 years. All in all, I believe ST is a fair value. But there are tradeoffs for that value.

Price - I continously compare other complexes and for the money you can't beat the deal. Yes, there are cheaper places but those complexes tend to have lots of other problems. However, the rent goes up 4-5% every year.

Parking - Generally parking is plentiful. Even when I come home very late at night, I usually can find a space within 4 rows of the front door. Like others have observed, the guest parking is rediculous. Each builidng has only 20 assigned guest spaces that are available on a first-come, first-served basis. They will only hand out guest passes one night at a time and not before 5 pm and the guest and tenant have to be present. Which means if you are expecting a weekend guest, they had better be there at 5 p.m. or risk no pass being available when they do show up later in the evening. And be back at the complex at 5 p.m. on Saturday regardless of your plans or you won't get a pass for the second night. There is no on-street partking within 1/2 to 1 mile. It's a real pain. ST reasoning is that it prevents people from parking there who are living at ST without being on the lease. However, in many cases, the people living at ST without being on the lease don't have cars anyway so all this policy does is harass the legitimate tenants. And commuters are allowed to park there all day for free and take the bus downtown and no one bats an eyelid. I would rather pay a fee for guests to park, than have to go through this hassle. $5-$10 per night would be worth it to avoid this frustration.

Convenient location - I work in downtown DC, and even with rush hour traffic I can be at my office within 30 minutes on most days. There's a 7-11, bank, dry cleaners on the premise and two grocery stores, a library, two pharmacies, two video rental stores, hair salons, several restaurants and other shops are just a short walk away. The down-side is there are poor sidewalk crossings so walking anywhere is dangerous, certainly children should not be allowed to walk anywhere off the property.

Mass Transit - There are lots of bus routes that stop at ST. This is both a blessing and a curse if you live on the side of the building facing Seminary Road. There are more than 300 buses stopping in front of these buildings every weekeday. I'm not exaggerating here. Get the schedules and count them, both in-bound and out-bound. That means that buses screach to a halt, and rev their engines to start (billowing black soot) more than 300 times per day from 5:20 a.m. until about 1:30 a.m. Forget opening the windows or sliding balcony doors. The noise is so loud I cannot hear the television, so I rarely open the windows and doors or sit on the balcony. And Seminary Road is very busy so my advice is not to accept an apartment that faces either Seminary Road or I-395.

Appearance - The grounds are well kept and the halls, laundry room and common areas are well maintained. (See later comment about trash rooms)

Laundry Room - This is one of my serious dislikes about ST. There are just 2 washing machines and 2 dryers per floor with 30 apartments on each floor. Compeition is fierce. I have to get up at 5 a.m. to be able to use a machine. If you are not there first, forget it. And the equipment is frequently out of order. You are not permitted to have W/D in your apartment. The price is reasonable $1.50 per per machine, but it's starting to increase more frequently.

Security - The building has a coded entry system which is suppose to make it impossible for outsiders to gain access to the building. This is a joke because there are so many people coming in and out of the building that all somoene without a pass key has to do is wait about 2-3 minutes and just follow someone in who does have a key. No one stops them. ST will not issue pass keys to your guests so you have to be with them all the time or be home to buzz them in using the coded system that works through your home phone (not your cell phone, however). So all this so-called security feature does is harass your weekend guests. And when i politely asked them to buzz in my 82 year old parents when they arrived for a week long visit, they refused. So I gave my parents my pass key and I just walked in with everybody else. ST reasoning is to keep people who aren't on the lease from living there. What a joke that is.

Trash Rooms - There is a trash room on every floor which is convenient, but despite my numerous pleas to management to do something about this situation, many tenants still open the door to the trash room and just toss garbage bags on the floor rather than put them down the trash chute. Many of the bags leak garbage juice all over the floor and the bugs are everywhere and constantly infest nearby apartments. It's a real serious problem. Periodically, I go into the trash room and throw bags down the chute to keep the situation from getting out of control. I may go to the Alexandria Health Department and complain, but when I complained to them previously about another matter, they told me it was a tenant-landlord issue and I would have to work it out with them. Thanks for nothing.

Maintenance - I have only had a few occasions to call for maintenance. The response has been mixed. When I first moved here is '93, the maintenance people seemed like experienced tradesman who took pride in their work. Now the maintenance people are all foreigners who act like they could care less. I had an A/C unit leak water all over the wooded floor in the bedroom which caused about 1/3 of the floor to warp about 3-4 inches in waves all over the place. I waited 6 months for the work to be completed. At the same time I asked them to fix a tile that had come off the shower wall. That was two years ago and it's still not fixed. However, they have sent me nasty letters several times complaining that I don't have carpeting in my apartment. (see reasoning below)

Windows and doors - The building has 1950's siingle pane metal-framed windows which leak both air and soot like a sive. The windows are drafty in the winter and you have to clean the blinds and window sills regularly to get rid of the dirt, dust and bus soot. However the heat is included in the rent so I just crank up the thermostat or plug in a ceramic heater to compensate. This and the bug issue is the reason that I don't have carpeting on the floors. It's easier to keep the place clean using a dust mop and electric boom. I sealed the windows in the bedroom to avoid this problem, but it is a problem at night in the spring and fall keeping the temperature regulated. (See below)

Heat & AC - The building uses the same system for AC and heat which means its one or the other, but not both. So in the spring and fall, when you need heat at night and AC in the daytime, you have to suffer. This situation is especially a problem if you live on the side of the building that faces Seminary Road which gets the afternoon sun. When I come home at night, the apartment is really hot, but opening the windows means having to put up with the bus and traffic noise. So again, be sure to get an apartment that faces away from the roads.

Trash Truck - Final comment, check where the dumpsters are located and don't get an apartment near them. In addition to the horrible smell during the summer months, the trash trucks show up religiously every morning around 5 a.m. and they make one heck of a lot of noise lifting and dumping them.

User Responses
From: cbpumacat	Date: 07/28/2005
This person must work for Southern Towers.

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